Blog Re-direct

Hello Everyone,

I have been absent for a very long time.  What can I say, life happens.  I have decided to combine the three blogs I am (not) maintaining into one.  I hope you will come visit me there!

Chelle's Bakery of Life


~Chelle

Summer???

It's not summer yet, but it sure felt like it last week!  I definitely could have gone for an overnight or two, if it hadn't been so cold at night, lol.  Oh yeah...and if the campground was open, lol!  The camping bug was awoken with last week's nice weather, especially since the last two trips last summer were cut short (grrr): one by Irene (campground closed), and the other because it was too cold for me, lol.

I am going to try to do some organizing of the camping "schtuff" in the garage in the next few weeks or so.  My best friend, JEM, moved to Utah a few weeks ago, and one of the items she did not take with her were some metal shelves (like baker's use).  I have a set of black ones in the garage already that house a bunch of camping stuff, but am excited to have another set!  I love to have everything organized and ready-to-go to toss in the car.  I'm pretty happy that in 30 minutes the car can be all packed up for a camping trip (with the exception of my clothes, lol).

I'd like to try some different campgrounds this summer, but keep going back to the same ol' familiar one.  There are a few in Connecticut that sound good, but the out-of-state overnight fee seems crazy to me ($28) when I can pay $12/nt here in Mass.  There's something to be said for familiarity though, lol. 

~Chelle

Wow.............I can't believe it's been so long since I've posted on here!

I did get out this past summer and do some camping.  One trip even had an unexpected guest: Irene.  I will work on locating pictures from the summer and post some updates!

~Chelle

Selecting a Camp Site

What makes one camp site good, and another bad?   What makes one better than the other?  It really depends on personal preference.  For me, it depends on who is going camping, and the purpose of the trip.

If it's just me going, and I'm going to be sleeping in my car, I don't have a preference on site size.  I really only need room for the screen house and the car, which all have.  If I'm planning to set up a tent and screen house, most sites also have adequate room for this too.  If I'm taking the kids with me, then I prefer a larger site, that will have plenty of empty space for them to play in.  Likewise if I'm expecting visitors while camping.

Finally, if I'm camping with another family, we try to get two sites adjacent to each other so the kids don't have to cross the campground road to go from one to the other.  Ideally, the two sites would not have trees between them, but you can't always count on that, lol.  If we have two sites, we try to get at least one of them to be a larger site, and that's where we would spend most of our time. 

I went camping with a friend's daughter, and my friend Muffin and her family a few years ago (I think 7....yikes!).  The kids were 3, 5, 7 and 9 (yes we might have been insane).  We went to Myles Standish (Fearing Pond, Loop 1, sites 13 and 14), and we got two adjacent sites with no trees between them.  We couldn't believe we lucked out!  We got there and decided to set up both tents on one of the sites, and both screenhouses on the other.  We assessed both sites and decided to set up the tents on site 13 and the screenhouses on 14 (thank god we didn't switch it!!!).  We opted for two screenhouses mostly to keep the kids out of the one we were cooking in and had everything else in.  So, once everything was set up we had a kitchen (my screen house), a dining room (her screen house), two bedrooms (the tents) and a living room (the open space between the two sites).  It was really cute, like a little house!

Well......a few days later we left Muffin's wonderful husband with 3 of the children and headed off to the store with the youngest.  It had rained a little while we were gone (or so we thought).....we returned to the campsite to find the four of them in the dining room, sitting on the top of the picnic table.  We quickly said 'uh oh' and wondered what happened.  We got out of the car and figured out real fast what happened.....it had POURED while we were gone, and there was about 1.5 - 2 ft of water in the middle of the campsite that had the screenhouses on it (this is why we were glad we didn't put the tents there).  We looked around, and at them in the screen house (Mr. Muffin telling them not to get off the table), and asked the stupidest question we possibly could have "what are you doing on the table?"  We got 'the look' from Mr. Muffin and we said "you could have told them to take their shoes off and let them walk around barefoot".  He hadn't thought of that, lol.  So, that's what we told the kids to do and they were quite excited, lol.  The water receded fairly soon after that.  We affectionately called it (and still do) "The great flood of 2004" hahaha.

So, back to my original topic...............

While I was walking around the campgrounds I noted whether the sites were wooded or open (this definition went from shaded/not to enough trees for clotheslines/not).  I should have been a little more specific, but there's always another trip out there, lol.  I also noted to what degree of privacy the site had.  A few of the campgrounds in Myles Standish have pretty private sites, at least in my opinion. 

I, personally, prefer a more open site, so I don't feel isolated from other people.  I know others like their privacy, so to each their own!  I also looked for low spots, flat spots, tree roots, etc.....  I ended up with a pretty decent list of awesome and good sites at all the campgrounds.


I also evaluated the bathrooms and showers at the campgrounds, because let's face it, you have to use them.  I am not squeamish about using public bathrooms and/or showers.  I even *GASP!* shower in my bare feet (oh the horror!!!).  Most of the bathrooms in Myles Standish are tiled ,as are the showers.  There was only one that is an older bathroom (and coincidentally the only campground open year round) that is poured concrete throughout.  The shower looked like it had seen better days, but since they were still getting ready for the regular camping season, I gave them the benefit of the doubt.  I'd still shower in it, but I know some people that wouldn't. 

So, there's my take on good and bad sites/campgrounds, lol.

I prefer the state parks, I have found over the years, that the kids are no more happier with a playground/arcade than they are without them.  And I think they make more of their own fun without that stuff anyway.

~Chelle

Fieldtrip Excursion

So, in preparation for heading out this summer to do some camping (hopefully a lot of camping, but we'll see), I went out on a fact-finding excursion the other week.  Like most people, I have my favorite campground, and even favorite camp sites at that campground.  I used to think I was odd, but after reading some camping blogs (my new obsession), I have realized a lot of people are like this.

As I think I've mentioned before, I took my friend Muffin's kids camping last summer.  They had a great time.  When I asked if they wanted to go again this summer, they said yes, but politely asked if we could go to a different campground because they are bored of the one we always go too.  I realized then, that for the entirety of their camping lives (that they would remember) we have always camped at the same campground, usually on the same site or two.  I said sure, and started doing some research.  I found some very nice state parks in VT that I thought would be fun to take them too. 

This was back in January, lol.  As it turns out, going to VT will not be possible this summer (I had planned to take them for a week, but can't do a week it's too far for just a weekend).  So, I started thinking, and the state park that I go to here in Mass (Myles Standish) has about 8 or 9 campgrounds.  So I wondered what the other campgrounds sites and bathrooms looked like.  I've stayed at one or two for a night or so, but it was a long time ago.  So, last week I decided to take a ride out (it's only about 45 minutes away) and evaluate all the sites and the bathrooms.

I went full-on geekiness with it and made spreadsheets for each campground with a line for each camp site, and columns for different features (wooded or open, private/semiprivate/nonprivate), and one for notes about the site.  I ended up walking around 5 of the campgrounds and driving through one of them.  My plan was to walk through all of them.  The first one didn't really have a place I could park the car, so I drove.  Two of the campgrounds weren't open yet (my car does not fit under the locked gates, lol), and the last one was too far away from the rest, and I didn't feel like driving up there.

There were a few people in a couple of the campgrounds, but other than that, it was I and the workers getting ready for this weekend.  It took between 10 and 20 minutes to walk each campground, assessing the sites and making notes.  I felt very accomplished when I finished!

On one of my walks through, I spotted something through the trees and thought my eyes were playing tricks on me:

Could it really be a SINK to wash DISHES in?????????

I just had to get a closer look:

Sure as ****, that's what it was!!!!!!!!!!

This is quite exciting, since this is the first time the state park has ever had them.  Not sure how this is going to work logistically.....I can envision people lining up with their dirty dishes, waiting to use the sink, lol.   I, for one, like doing my dishes in my screenhouse.  I would consider washing my big pasta pot in this though.....it's a little cramped in the dish pan for it.  

We will have to wait and see.....I'll try to remember to pay attention when I go!

~Chelle

Memorial Day!

The "unofficial" start to summer......and for most up here in New England, the start of the camping season.

Since I don't camp where there is electricity and wi-fi, it should be obvious that I'm not camping this weekend.  Why is that you might ask?  Firstly, I'd have had to make reservations months ago to get a site, but mostly because there are just too many people who left their brains at home, and generally acting stupidly and idiotically - neither of which I have a lot of patience for, lol.  It also urks me when people don't follow the campground rules, but I am working to look past that and not let it spoil my trip.  I have camped on holiday weekends, but Memorial Day seems to be the worst. 

One year, I got a site over the 4th of July weekend and had a cookout.  There were about 12 people plus my dog.  We had a great time, and took the kids swimming in the afternoon.   I've also camped over Labor Weekend up in NH.  It was a great weekend, and people were all in a good mood, blowing off some steam since it was the 'end' of summer, and the last trip for most people (myself included).  It just gets too cold to tent camp up here much after Labor Day.


~Chelle

A Glorious Day!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hello all my faithful readers!!!!!!!!!

I have wonderful, stupendous news!!!!!!!!!!!

It was finally nice more than one day in a row (I know - what a shock!).........and I was FINALLY able to play with my new tent!!!!!!!!!!

O. M. G. it's AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My friend, Muffin, has a pretty good sized back yard.  It's also her kids that I am most likely taking camping this summer (the teenager claims he doesn't want to go, but I'm pretty sure he'll change his mind).  Since they do not go camping all that much, I felt it was necessary to make sure that they were capable of helping me set up the tent (I can't do it alone, it's too tall for me to get the rain fly over it).  It's also a good idea to set up a tent in the backyard first, so you know what you're doing and not trying to figure it out when you're hot and sweaty and tired, lol.

So....we took the tent out to her backyard and carefully unpacked the bag.  My intention was to take a picture of each step of setting up the tent, however, it was all set up before I realized I forgot to take pictures, lol.  We did learn a few things while setting it up.  The footprint should be clipped onto the rings of the tent before the poles get put in, it's too difficult to do it afterwards.  Also, one of the poles in the rain-fly needs to be put in before the rain-fly is on the tent. 

Here is the tent fully set up:

This is the side of the tent, the screen house doors and side covering are unzipped.  The tent door is also open, and the footprint is not attached to the tent itself.

The other side of the tent, with everything closed up.  The tent is also not staked down, since this was just a trial run.  You can see the footprint peaking out from the screen house - it will not be that way when set up properly.

This is the front of the screen house, looking into the tent.

Standing in the screen house, looking into the tent.  There is a door in the back of the tent!!!!  The tent floor is not taught, since it's not staked down.

Another view looking from the screen house into the tent.  The rain fly covering on the back of the tent is unzipped.  It rolls up to provide additional coverage over the door.

This is the ceiling.  This tent is tall inside!!!!

I was a little concerned when I ordered the tent about the sleeping dimensions, but it looked like it would fit three air mattresses side by side in the actual tent portion.  It will be a little cozy, but they will fit.  I think my estimate of 10x10 might be pretty accurate.  I didn't think to measure it while it was set up, lol.

I can't wait to take it camping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It came with plastic stakes....so I am planning on swapping them for the titanium ones that I have.  I just don't like plastic stakes, even if they DO say LLBean on them.

~Chelle